I can’t answer this question…
… it’d take all day and is so deeply ingrained in what I do. 
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I use it on my Watch constantly. When I’m out walking or at the office, it’s now my most used way to capture ideas. I’ve also started to use it for dictation when I want to write certain things, and find it remarkably reliable.
Not having to pull out my phone means I can capture without it interrupting whatever I’m doing, and it is quite frankly marvellous!
For me, NValt/Simplenote use forked into Notes for storage, and Drafts for quick capture and process (now or later.) Often Notes is the destination of the draft, but that’s not something I necessarily know when I start typing. Draft’s big advantage, besides all the actions, is how it lets you delay the decision of what to do with a piece of information because it’s so easy to move and process it when the decision is made.
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Here is one of my favorite features in Drafts that Notes will never have: TextExpander support. That is why I started with Drafts and why I stick with it.
I have all my podcast intro/outro scripts as drafts. I use it to take notes while watching a TV show for later discussion on a podcast. I use it for drafts of pretty much anything. I even use it as a temporary clipboard sometimes because it is so frictionless.
I am probably using only 10% of its features. It did take me a while before it became my single text go-to app, which happened when the Mac app came out.
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As you know one feature is enough to make an app worthwhile.
Being able to jot stuff down and add it to the top of an appropriate list keeps Drafts on my iOS devices. Because it’s there I use it for other tasks.
The list action produces this form.
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I do think Drafts is a create way to start but if it can’t maintain at least some formatting from where it started then you’d have to spend your time doing the work again - making it not worth the trouble. For example, I create a list in Drafts:
Grocery List
- apples
- oranges
- bananas
In Drafts, the pluses are not converting to bullets. The H1 heading is not being put in the title area when sharing to Evernote.
In Gmail, all the content is placed in both the Subject AND body fields. This type of behavior will force the user to constantly edit what’s been shared with other apps. Eventually, they will get frustrated enough to no longer use Drafts at all.
The email issue you have was happening to me, but if you send it using the markdown email in the markdown list in Drafts that issue you are having won’t happen.
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I do this quite often myself!
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Drafts is brilliant and I use it constantly, but, if
- you know where the text will end up
- you want it beautifully formatted
- you plan to start and finish in one sitting
then Drafts might not be the right app.
Personally I use it for meeting notes, so I don’t care much for the formatting most of the time (bullets and headers are as far as I normally need)
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Yea OK but I’m not looking to format in Drafts, I just want the formatting I did make in Drafts to be maintained when I share the text to to other apps. I don’t want to redo the work I’ve already done.
I have a “to clipboard as rich text” action that I use which makes the result easy to paste into whatever rich text app I might want. If there are particular apps that you are always sending things to, you could make an action to send the draft as rich text to that app pretty easily.
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That action is with the paid version right?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still using Drafts right now but when sharing to other apps, the work I’ve done is messed up then I might as well skip Drafts and go straight to the app where the text will end up.
The reason I like Drafts is:
- It always opens to a new page when it launches (handy for Keyboard Maestro)
- Doesn’t save files unless something is written in them (this was frustrating in the Notes app)
- Has long dictation time period in iOS
I’m not sure. Certainly the ability to create custom actions is part of the Pro subscription. But I forget whether there’s some version of a “convert to rich text” or “convert to html” action that’s included with the free version.
I use Drafts for almost all short or a little longer texts. When I write a post or comment like this I do it in Drafts. If I get interrupted while writing it will still be there later to complete. Once I copy it via the action (without having to select) it gets archived. I think if I did that with Notes I would be annoyed by all the short text snippets. If it is something that is supposed to be stored in Scrivener I tag it “Scrivener” and from time to time I sit down on my Mac to sort the stuff into Scrivener (maybe I’ll switch to Ulysses, then this will be easier). I have a workspace for that. I have another one for unfinished texts, so they don’t clutter my inbox. Just recently I made a workspace to show me all untagged documents. When I have a little time I grind through this and either tag it, when it’s something I think I want to keep (e. g. “Facebook” for something clever I posted or the name of the blog where it was published) or I move it to the trash.
Documents that I refer to frequently get flagged.
I write in Markdown and copy to html when composing a blogpost or an email. Otherwise I usually don’t need much formatting.
I like that it opens a blank document upon opening the app. I like TextExpander integration. I like having shortcuts like “paste” etc. in the extra keyboard row.
I should get deeper into actions, that is something that sounds great but I keep forgetting to find use cases for me.
with the free version you cannot create custom actions, but you can install them from the action directory, that contains a lot of custom action tailored for a lot of needs.
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Just came across this very useful article again:
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The main reasons I use Drafts:
Front-end to Evernote
Let’s face it, Evernote is ugly and the editor feature set is dreadful.
I use the Drafts to write short to long notes and then if its worth keeping for long-term storage I use the two click/press inbuilt Action to send the draft to Evernote. The aforementioned action also auto converts the draft to a HTML format which is supported by Evernote and therefore I don’t have to do any additional text formatting.
Quick capture
Just click on the Drafts app icon on your iPhone and I’m immediately taken to a new note and can start writing. Just one-click! No need to set a title to the note also, it uses as the title the first line of the note.
Capturing notes via Apple Watch app is excellent.
Scratchpad
During the day I quickly capture my thoughts, quotes and ideas. During my weekly review, I eliminate the bad ones and move the good ones to other apps. I prefer this than cluttering Evernote and my task manager with potential low quality information.
Customizable
Customizable keyboard, editor, fonts, themes etc
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Hello, newbie here. I have installed draft on a new MacBook, but I am unable to see it in the share sheet. This is weird because it shows up on my old Macbook air. Any tips? I went in the system preference extension and Draft does not show up as an option. thank you.
